I have been looking for this for 2 months. Finally found it today. A friend sent it to me via FB messenger right after my dad died. I thought I had stashed it somewhere easy to find. That as pretty silly of me.

It will probably make you cry a little. It made me tear up, again. But, it helps my heart, too.

Tomorrow is my parents 56th wedding anniversary.

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Ded said “Garrison Keillor read that on The Writer’s Almanac the day before my dad died. I was alone in the office in the very early morning, which was a good thing, because I knew my dad was dying, and I ended up sobbing. I also knew it was a gift, and I worked to find a copy of it (this was 1996, before you could find anything on the interwebs) to be read at his funeral. On the first anniversary of my dad’s death, Garrison Keillor read it on The Writer’s Almanac again. Since then I have always shared it with friends when their dad’s pass, and it was read at the funeral of my children’s father. It means a great deal to me; I’m glad it means a great deal to you too.”

I think erotica aims to titillate. Where you draw the pornography line has to do with your own head. For me, it is determined by consent. And erotica that doesn’t have the consent of all participants crosses that line into unacceptable. That includes putting up your own photo of yourself being erotic where I will see it without warning me that you are going to show me your sexuality.

If you say “There is erotica here” I can choose to participate or not. If you put up a photo of you slipping your hand into your panties or your dick slipping into your willing partner without a warning, you have become a pornographer because my participation was without my own volition.

And work no longer has anything to do with “NSFW.” That has become code for “there may be nakedness here.”

I have been a fan of Wassily Kandinsky ever since I first saw a picture of his work.

And it puzzled me because I don’t (didn’t) really get abstract art. And I presumed Kandinsky was doing abstracts.

I was wrong.

Recently, I was at a gallery show with artists hanging around to meet the public. (Last Friday in Hillsborough) Lolette Guthrie was one of the artists at the Hillsborough Gallery of Art and we had a very brief conversation. She explained her Summer at the Coast to me.

There is a line that is the beach. There is a line that is highway that parallels the beach. There is blue that is the ocean and there is blue that is the sound. I don’t entirely get abstraction. But, I have a better understanding.

So, a couple of months after that, I was in Charleston and there was an exhibition at the #Gibbes Museum of Art that included work by #Kandinsky. I learned that there is #non-objective art. Art that doesn’t represent, in whatever form, objects. Rather, it creates a mood, a feeling, using space and color and shapes. And it resonates so much for me.

This man decided to confront his fear of death by taking pictures of patients in hospice before and after their deaths. It’s very moving.

We try not to talk about dying and I think we do ourselves a disservice by that avoidance. I believe we need to discuss allowing people ways to opt out when they feel like that is the correct thing to do. Death is inevitable and ignoring its eventuality is absurd.